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I realize this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but how can anyone justify buying this when Google notoriously kills off projects? My money says this goes the way

I realize this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but how can anyone justify buying this when Google notoriously kills off projects? My money says this goes the way of the Pixel tablet. If Apple couldn't make it work, does Google really think they can? This should be headlining an event, not relegated to a blog post.

nba456_ 1y ago
this was an event https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITXJquX9FqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITXJquX9FqM
- malnourish 1y ago
  Thank you, I stand corrected on there being an event.
- hnuser123456 1y ago
  Comments are disabled. Were there any utter flubs like meta's AI cooking demo?
IncreasePosts 1y ago
This is really just a hacker news/inside tech meme. Look at half the comments on this submission, they're just low effort "lol Google kills off products" statements. Random people on the street would have no idea what you're talking about, because they use chrome, android, Google search, discover, Gmail, and Google maps. I think Google just has a habit of making products that excite techies but then prove unsustainable for a wider audience (reader being the prime example). I think them trying that (and then failing) is better for everyone than them simply not even trying, which is what some other major tech players do(Apple) If people actually want to use this product and it is selling well and there are a lot of android XR users, then it's unlikely that Google will kill it. If it doesn't sell well and there aren't many android XR users, sure, it may be killed, but I don't think you'll find many examples of companies sustaining an unprofitable line of business just for the goodwill of the few people using the product.
- lynndotpy 1y ago
  This isn't a reputation only "techies" have picked up on. The Pixel phone upgrade gram, Chromecast, and Stadia are all things I've seen very normal people lament disappearing. Youtube and Search constantly changing for the worse are also well-worn and the subject of memes.
- wlesieutre 1y ago
  For consumer hardware spaces (tablets and smartwatches) they're currently acting like they care, but they have previously checked out of those spaces and then come back years later saying "Just kidding actually we are doing tablets!" What might save this one is that the Oculus Quest ecosystem being Android based with similar hardware, so it should be pretty easy for an ecosystem of appropriately designed software to get ported over. Kind of like how big screen Android devices have been an afterthought for most apps (hope you like enlarged phone UIs) but what might rescue tablets this time is foldable phones showing up and making developers consider "what if the screen isn't a tall rectangle?" I still think there's high chances they have one or two generations of hardware trying to copy the Oculus Quest / Vision Pro and then pull the plug and say "forget VR we're doing AI glasses." They were ahead of the curve with Google Glass, but have that habit of bailing on things and giving up the first mover advantage.
  - psunavy03 1y ago
    AR is going to be on the back burner unless miniaturization improves for the price point. The only player in that space I'm aware of is Anduril's EagleEye, which is Son of HoloLens 2 for the Army's IVAS contract. AFAIK Anduril yoinked all the staff and tech from the HoloLens team (or a lot of the staff anyway) when it fell over. MS and Magic Leap tried to make holographic AR work, but the state of the art wasn't cheap and compact enough for them to make any money on it.
- sorenjan 1y ago
  Another example would be Android Wear. They lost interest in that for years and let it languish, and only recently started caring again with the help of Samsung. But an old watch I bought never got an update, in fact it lost functionality compared to when I bought it, and I won't fall in that trap again. I also switched to Spotify when Google shut down their Play music, I'll much rather get my music from someone where that is their business model and not a hobby.
ls-a 1y ago
People are still buying the second version of Pebble watch. It's called wasting money.
- jama211 1y ago
  Your comment is unhelpful, uncalled for, and unrelated.
  - ls-a 1y ago
    [flagged]
- asadm 1y ago
  what? the Pebble is essentially very refreshing offering. I am tired of "too-smart" Apple watch and am eagerly waiting for my Pebble!
  - ls-a 1y ago
    It's a dead product that was resurrected to cash out again from money wasters before it gets killed again
    - asadm 1y ago
      my original Pebble still works. Not sure what you mean by dead.
- numpad0 1y ago
  Everything in this universe is waste of resources. The true value of anything is nothing, nothing has a true value[1]. Physical substances are mere representations of causalities. 1: gasp this makes so much more sense read as English, I guess it really was written in an Indo-European language
jayd16 1y ago
Only buy the product for what it is, and not what it might be. Assuming they don't go out of their way to brick it post shutdown, you should still have an ok device.
- ares623 1y ago
  Stadia owners in shambles
  - zeagle 1y ago
    I'm last to defend Google usually but not a great example. My inlaws got a refund for the hardware and new games they purchased/played and got to keep the controller. Everything else they've killed? Sure. I wish most collapsed ecosystems did this.
    - bsimpson 1y ago
      You basically got to play Cyberpunk for free and keep one of the most ergonomic controllers ever afterwards.
      - wkat4242 1y ago
        Which you can reprogram to Bluetooth. It's a good controller yes though a little heavy for my liking.
  - rockostrich 1y ago
    Not at all considering they fully refunded all purchases. I got 4 free bluetooth controllers out of it.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      ... don't forget the free 4k Chromecast(s)
hbn 1y ago
> My money says this goes the way of the Pixel tablet. I need to do a Google search every time to recall their history with tablets. I remember the Nexus tablets which came out for like a 3 year streak. Then it was the Pixel C in 2015, then a 3 year gap until the Pixel Slate, then 5 years before the Pixel Tablet. Do not ask me about any of their capabilities or their intention in the market because every release could have been anything. I'm so beyond getting on board with anything Google puts out, it's kinda just funny to watch and laugh at this point.
- bsimpson 1y ago
  I think the Pixel C was rumored to be a Chromebook that got Android instead last minute, and then the Pixel Slate did run Android, and now there are all the rumors about ChromeOS being rebased atop Android…
  - skiman10 1y ago
    The Pixel Slate actually did run ChromeOS and then could run Android apps in a VM haha. And those aren't rumors, there is a pretty big effort to get Android ready for ChromeOS and get feature parity. Which to me is really unfortunate, CrOS has such a nice linux base.
    - bsimpson 1y ago
      True, but I can see the argument for it. Kinda wild to maintain two different userspaces for Linux, when one is far and away the most popular for smaller-than-computer devices. Plus, it gives Android developers a widescreen demographic to target, which might finally give them a nudge to make their UIs adapt to things that aren't portrait candybars.
    - hbn 1y ago
      I also remember Fuchsia being Google's new be-all-end-all OS within the company that was being taken very seriously and then nothing came of it Completely directionless
  - mdwrigh2 1y ago
baby 1y ago
Meta is making it work
- TulliusCicero 1y ago
  Meta has reasonably priced headsets, with controllers that work well for gaming, and a large library of reasonably compelling games (admittedly basically all indie games). It looks like Google has a very expensive headset, no controllers, and thus no real games to go along with it.
  - spogbiper 1y ago
    controllers are an optional first party accessory as shown in the demonstration. i'd expect it to work with 3rd party controllers as well. whether Meta games will port I'm not sure but since both are android based it shouldn't be too difficult?
    - laweijfmvo 1y ago
      at $249, the headset plus controllers put it over $2000, which is a lot to spend on an unknown product that might be deprecated on arrival. The Meta Quest 3S includes controllers and is currently on sale for $249, and at least you mostly know what you’re going to get, even if they never release another VR headset.
    - hadlock 1y ago
      I think everyone who has ever owned a game console and bought the "optional first party accessory" (super scope 6, kinect, etc) is painfully aware that since developers can't count on widespread adoption, they almost never waste resources implementing support for them. Not that it matters, apple has dropped support for true VR and now that google doesn't have to compete on this obscure battlefield, it will be cancelled before the end of Q4. I honestly feel bad for the team it was probably a good product. The launch event may have only been done for tax purposes to recover R&D losses.
    - TulliusCicero 1y ago
zoeysmithe 1y ago
Did Apple try to get into this market? Their device is fairly ridiculous compared to where VR seems to have been going all these years: cheap nearly disposable headsets like the Oculus. Which I believe is half the price of the original HTC Vive. More expensive than the Vive isn't the way forward. Apple had a tech demo and slumping quarterly reports and need some PR wins, so out came the headset. I don't think it was a good faith effort to get into this market. I think it was to get headlines, jazz up stocks, and get attention as an innovator outside of laptops and phones. I have no idea what Google can do here, but Android is a long running project. The Pixel line has long-ish term support. Google can eat Oculus's lunch. I just think the question is if Oculus's walled garden is now too high to climb, both in software and patents. FB money and Carmack's talents are going to be hard to beat here. If I had to guess, I'd say Google saw Oculus get good at games, but everything else about it is fairly uninteresting. XR/AR could be hot and those new Meta glasses are pretty much Google Glass on steroids. So who knows, but seeing Google dive back into AR/XR is promising and I think they can compete here in a way they can't with VR games. I could see myself buying AR glasses branded Pixel or Google. I'd think they'd be a better product than Meta. I don't know where Google is going with this and this product seems underwhelming, but we may have an entirely different product in a year or two. I have a feeling both Apple and Samsung's product are PR placeholders until they can catch up to Meta on shoe-horning this into Ray-Ban-esque glasses format.
AshamedCaptain 1y ago
And Samsung is even worse: remember GearVR ? I had a Note device that on launch was compatible with GearVR, but they killed support for it in one of the few the Android updates. This was back when getting 3 Android updates was "lucky". i.e. they launched and completely killed GearVR (paperweight level) all within 5 years.
- SunlitCat 1y ago
  Especially Samsung. I’m still very salty about Samsung never officially releasing their Samsung Odyssey VR headset in Europe. It was the best VR headset among the Windows Mixed Reality headsets at the time of their release. Of course, the HP Reverb was better, but it came out much later, too late for WMR to really take off. I still believe that if Microsoft had forced Samsung to release the Odyssey VR headset worldwide, WMR could have been a success. And I’m pretty sure Samsung won’t release this one (the Galaxy VR) worldwide either, which will be the reason it fails and Google will probably take that as an excuse to shut down the project as well.
  - gs17 1y ago
    > I still believe that if Microsoft had forced Samsung to release the Odyssey VR headset worldwide, WMR could have been a success. I'm not sure if Microsoft actually wanted to try to make it a success. They made a lot of decisions that didn't help it succeed, with one of those decisions leading to every headset being a brick (officially, although Oasis fixes them) now. I could go on and on about it, because I love my Odyssey+ and it's frustrating to see how they screwed the ecosystem up so badly.
    - SunlitCat 1y ago
      That’s true, tho! But I still remember the uproar in various communities about Samsung’s decision not to release what was, at the time, the only premium-tier WMR headset, with higher resolution and refresh rate, a wider FOV, mechanical IPD adjustment, and a few other features. Only the HP Reverb WMR headset, released about two years later, offered comparable premium features and launched in more regions. But in my opinion, by then it was already too late. The thing is, even at a slightly higher price point, the Samsung Odyssey would have been a great entry into PC VR for many people, since it was still one of the most affordable headsets compared to its competitors at the time, like the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift. That alone could have helped WMR gain more traction. But many reviewers weren’t too impressed by the other WMR headsets from different manufacturers. Some even compared them to the Samsung Odyssey and suggested waiting for Samsung to release theirs worldwide, since it was clearly the better one (at that time, in 2017).
LarsDu88 1y ago
Its obvious this was greenlit in response to Apple Vision Pro, which means is about 1 year away from being killed as soon as Apple pulls back on Vision Pro in favor of some sort of AR smart glass technology
p1necone 1y ago
Hopefully you can bypass the builtin software and use it as a PC vr headset, otherwise it's just going to be ewaste.
pjmlp 1y ago
Remember Tango. Yeah, this is going nowhere, is the typical case having to do something because the neighbour is also doing it.

nba456_ 1y ago

this was an event https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITXJquX9FqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITXJquX9FqM

malnourish 1y ago
Thank you, I stand corrected on there being an event.
hnuser123456 1y ago
Comments are disabled. Were there any utter flubs like meta's AI cooking demo?

IncreasePosts 1y ago

This is really just a hacker news/inside tech meme. Look at half the comments on this submission, they're just low effort "lol Google kills off products" statements. Random people on the street would have no idea what you're talking about, because they use chrome, android, Google search, discover, Gmail, and Google maps. I think Google just has a habit of making products that excite techies but then prove unsustainable for a wider audience (reader being the prime example). I think them trying that (and then failing) is better for everyone than them simply not even trying, which is what some other major tech players do(Apple) If people actually want to use this product and it is selling well and there are a lot of android XR users, then it's unlikely that Google will kill it. If it doesn't sell well and there aren't many android XR users, sure, it may be killed, but I don't think you'll find many examples of companies sustaining an unprofitable line of business just for the goodwill of the few people using the product.

lynndotpy 1y ago
This isn't a reputation only "techies" have picked up on. The Pixel phone upgrade gram, Chromecast, and Stadia are all things I've seen very normal people lament disappearing. Youtube and Search constantly changing for the worse are also well-worn and the subject of memes.
wlesieutre 1y ago
For consumer hardware spaces (tablets and smartwatches) they're currently acting like they care, but they have previously checked out of those spaces and then come back years later saying "Just kidding actually we are doing tablets!" What might save this one is that the Oculus Quest ecosystem being Android based with similar hardware, so it should be pretty easy for an ecosystem of appropriately designed software to get ported over. Kind of like how big screen Android devices have been an afterthought for most apps (hope you like enlarged phone UIs) but what might rescue tablets this time is foldable phones showing up and making developers consider "what if the screen isn't a tall rectangle?" I still think there's high chances they have one or two generations of hardware trying to copy the Oculus Quest / Vision Pro and then pull the plug and say "forget VR we're doing AI glasses." They were ahead of the curve with Google Glass, but have that habit of bailing on things and giving up the first mover advantage.
- psunavy03 1y ago
  AR is going to be on the back burner unless miniaturization improves for the price point. The only player in that space I'm aware of is Anduril's EagleEye, which is Son of HoloLens 2 for the Army's IVAS contract. AFAIK Anduril yoinked all the staff and tech from the HoloLens team (or a lot of the staff anyway) when it fell over. MS and Magic Leap tried to make holographic AR work, but the state of the art wasn't cheap and compact enough for them to make any money on it.
sorenjan 1y ago
Another example would be Android Wear. They lost interest in that for years and let it languish, and only recently started caring again with the help of Samsung. But an old watch I bought never got an update, in fact it lost functionality compared to when I bought it, and I won't fall in that trap again. I also switched to Spotify when Google shut down their Play music, I'll much rather get my music from someone where that is their business model and not a hobby.

ls-a 1y ago

People are still buying the second version of Pebble watch. It's called wasting money.

jama211 1y ago
Your comment is unhelpful, uncalled for, and unrelated.
- ls-a 1y ago
  [flagged]
asadm 1y ago
what? the Pebble is essentially very refreshing offering. I am tired of "too-smart" Apple watch and am eagerly waiting for my Pebble!
- ls-a 1y ago
  It's a dead product that was resurrected to cash out again from money wasters before it gets killed again
  - asadm 1y ago
    my original Pebble still works. Not sure what you mean by dead.
numpad0 1y ago
Everything in this universe is waste of resources. The true value of anything is nothing, nothing has a true value[1]. Physical substances are mere representations of causalities. 1: gasp this makes so much more sense read as English, I guess it really was written in an Indo-European language

jayd16 1y ago

Only buy the product for what it is, and not what it might be. Assuming they don't go out of their way to brick it post shutdown, you should still have an ok device.

ares623 1y ago
Stadia owners in shambles
- zeagle 1y ago
  I'm last to defend Google usually but not a great example. My inlaws got a refund for the hardware and new games they purchased/played and got to keep the controller. Everything else they've killed? Sure. I wish most collapsed ecosystems did this.
  - bsimpson 1y ago
    You basically got to play Cyberpunk for free and keep one of the most ergonomic controllers ever afterwards.
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      Which you can reprogram to Bluetooth. It's a good controller yes though a little heavy for my liking.
- rockostrich 1y ago
  Not at all considering they fully refunded all purchases. I got 4 free bluetooth controllers out of it.
  - overfeed 1y ago
    ... don't forget the free 4k Chromecast(s)

hbn 1y ago

> My money says this goes the way of the Pixel tablet. I need to do a Google search every time to recall their history with tablets. I remember the Nexus tablets which came out for like a 3 year streak. Then it was the Pixel C in 2015, then a 3 year gap until the Pixel Slate, then 5 years before the Pixel Tablet. Do not ask me about any of their capabilities or their intention in the market because every release could have been anything. I'm so beyond getting on board with anything Google puts out, it's kinda just funny to watch and laugh at this point.

bsimpson 1y ago
I think the Pixel C was rumored to be a Chromebook that got Android instead last minute, and then the Pixel Slate did run Android, and now there are all the rumors about ChromeOS being rebased atop Android…
- skiman10 1y ago
  The Pixel Slate actually did run ChromeOS and then could run Android apps in a VM haha. And those aren't rumors, there is a pretty big effort to get Android ready for ChromeOS and get feature parity. Which to me is really unfortunate, CrOS has such a nice linux base.
  - bsimpson 1y ago
    True, but I can see the argument for it. Kinda wild to maintain two different userspaces for Linux, when one is far and away the most popular for smaller-than-computer devices. Plus, it gives Android developers a widescreen demographic to target, which might finally give them a nudge to make their UIs adapt to things that aren't portrait candybars.
  - hbn 1y ago
    I also remember Fuchsia being Google's new be-all-end-all OS within the company that was being taken very seriously and then nothing came of it Completely directionless
- mdwrigh2 1y ago

baby 1y ago

Meta is making it work

TulliusCicero 1y ago
Meta has reasonably priced headsets, with controllers that work well for gaming, and a large library of reasonably compelling games (admittedly basically all indie games). It looks like Google has a very expensive headset, no controllers, and thus no real games to go along with it.
- spogbiper 1y ago
  controllers are an optional first party accessory as shown in the demonstration. i'd expect it to work with 3rd party controllers as well. whether Meta games will port I'm not sure but since both are android based it shouldn't be too difficult?
  - laweijfmvo 1y ago
    at $249, the headset plus controllers put it over $2000, which is a lot to spend on an unknown product that might be deprecated on arrival. The Meta Quest 3S includes controllers and is currently on sale for $249, and at least you mostly know what you’re going to get, even if they never release another VR headset.
  - hadlock 1y ago
    I think everyone who has ever owned a game console and bought the "optional first party accessory" (super scope 6, kinect, etc) is painfully aware that since developers can't count on widespread adoption, they almost never waste resources implementing support for them. Not that it matters, apple has dropped support for true VR and now that google doesn't have to compete on this obscure battlefield, it will be cancelled before the end of Q4. I honestly feel bad for the team it was probably a good product. The launch event may have only been done for tax purposes to recover R&D losses.
  - TulliusCicero 1y ago

zoeysmithe 1y ago

Did Apple try to get into this market? Their device is fairly ridiculous compared to where VR seems to have been going all these years: cheap nearly disposable headsets like the Oculus. Which I believe is half the price of the original HTC Vive. More expensive than the Vive isn't the way forward. Apple had a tech demo and slumping quarterly reports and need some PR wins, so out came the headset. I don't think it was a good faith effort to get into this market. I think it was to get headlines, jazz up stocks, and get attention as an innovator outside of laptops and phones. I have no idea what Google can do here, but Android is a long running project. The Pixel line has long-ish term support. Google can eat Oculus's lunch. I just think the question is if Oculus's walled garden is now too high to climb, both in software and patents. FB money and Carmack's talents are going to be hard to beat here. If I had to guess, I'd say Google saw Oculus get good at games, but everything else about it is fairly uninteresting. XR/AR could be hot and those new Meta glasses are pretty much Google Glass on steroids. So who knows, but seeing Google dive back into AR/XR is promising and I think they can compete here in a way they can't with VR games. I could see myself buying AR glasses branded Pixel or Google. I'd think they'd be a better product than Meta. I don't know where Google is going with this and this product seems underwhelming, but we may have an entirely different product in a year or two. I have a feeling both Apple and Samsung's product are PR placeholders until they can catch up to Meta on shoe-horning this into Ray-Ban-esque glasses format.

AshamedCaptain 1y ago

And Samsung is even worse: remember GearVR ? I had a Note device that on launch was compatible with GearVR, but they killed support for it in one of the few the Android updates. This was back when getting 3 Android updates was "lucky". i.e. they launched and completely killed GearVR (paperweight level) all within 5 years.

SunlitCat 1y ago
Especially Samsung. I’m still very salty about Samsung never officially releasing their Samsung Odyssey VR headset in Europe. It was the best VR headset among the Windows Mixed Reality headsets at the time of their release. Of course, the HP Reverb was better, but it came out much later, too late for WMR to really take off. I still believe that if Microsoft had forced Samsung to release the Odyssey VR headset worldwide, WMR could have been a success. And I’m pretty sure Samsung won’t release this one (the Galaxy VR) worldwide either, which will be the reason it fails and Google will probably take that as an excuse to shut down the project as well.
- gs17 1y ago
  > I still believe that if Microsoft had forced Samsung to release the Odyssey VR headset worldwide, WMR could have been a success. I'm not sure if Microsoft actually wanted to try to make it a success. They made a lot of decisions that didn't help it succeed, with one of those decisions leading to every headset being a brick (officially, although Oasis fixes them) now. I could go on and on about it, because I love my Odyssey+ and it's frustrating to see how they screwed the ecosystem up so badly.
  - SunlitCat 1y ago
    That’s true, tho! But I still remember the uproar in various communities about Samsung’s decision not to release what was, at the time, the only premium-tier WMR headset, with higher resolution and refresh rate, a wider FOV, mechanical IPD adjustment, and a few other features. Only the HP Reverb WMR headset, released about two years later, offered comparable premium features and launched in more regions. But in my opinion, by then it was already too late. The thing is, even at a slightly higher price point, the Samsung Odyssey would have been a great entry into PC VR for many people, since it was still one of the most affordable headsets compared to its competitors at the time, like the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift. That alone could have helped WMR gain more traction. But many reviewers weren’t too impressed by the other WMR headsets from different manufacturers. Some even compared them to the Samsung Odyssey and suggested waiting for Samsung to release theirs worldwide, since it was clearly the better one (at that time, in 2017).

LarsDu88 1y ago

Its obvious this was greenlit in response to Apple Vision Pro, which means is about 1 year away from being killed as soon as Apple pulls back on Vision Pro in favor of some sort of AR smart glass technology

p1necone 1y ago

Hopefully you can bypass the builtin software and use it as a PC vr headset, otherwise it's just going to be ewaste.

pjmlp 1y ago

Remember Tango. Yeah, this is going nowhere, is the typical case having to do something because the neighbour is also doing it.